On January 20, 2025, fascist pig Donald Trump signed an executive order with the name “Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI programs.” With a few strokes of his Sharpie, he not only targeted and overturned programs authorized by President Joe Biden, he also negated the thrust of an executive order signed by Lyndon Johnson in 1965 intended to limit outright discrimination against Black and other oppressed people in jobs or contracts involving the federal government.

Trump’s directive forbids any discussion of overcoming discrimination in hiring, firing, discipline, and promotion. The standard being set in the federal government will be replicated wherever fascists hold power and in many, many companies. This is an attack designed to promote further the idea that whites have been getting somehow discriminated against—when every indicator indicates Black people are either remaining behind or falling even further behind in every measure of health, income, family wealth, education, infant and maternal deaths, etc.—not to mention the fact that every time a Black person hops in the car to pick up groceries, he or she runs the risk of a “police encounter” in which they end up dead!

But no, in the bizarro-world according to Trump, white people and men are facing discrimination! And this new edict will no doubt mean that whites and men will be put in charge of more institutions and positions of leadership, and people of color, LGBT people and women will be purged—their merit and value being negated by calling them “DEI hires.” And what is done first in the government will then be taken up throughout society.

Trump’s order also calls for each federal agency to identify "up to nine potential civil compliance investigations” of large corporations, universities, law firms, foundations, hospitals, and other institutions and investigate them for their DEI policies that may be—or may have been—in violation of the new policies of the fascist regime. What the consequences will be for those found in violation of the new fascist regulations is not yet known. But, reportedly, Trump's plan includes withholding federal money from any schools, companies, or charities that use DEI principles in their curricula or hiring practices. Please note: there are over 400 federal agencies and sub-agencies, each required to carry out this order: nine investigations in each one would lead to a massive immediate reversal. And it is plain that the most zealous “identifiers” will be rewarded.

Right away, this initial phase of purging began. Those whose jobs were connected to DEI programs in federal agencies were out of work by 5:00 pm that same day. Their offices were closed, and their programs ended. All public websites for DEI were removed. 

The DEI programs that Biden authorized by executive order were an attempt by the Democrats mainly to put forward a positive program to address the whole history of racist oppression and exclusion of certain people. There were some problems with the implementation of some of these DEI programs, and they were never going to solve the overall problems that have been built into the foundation and functioning of this system since 1619. But the Trump opposition to them has been a virulent NO to any recognition of the ugly history in this country of racism, male supremacy and patriarchal anti-LGBT movements, insisting that any efforts to remedy these is harmful to white people in particular. 

Enforcing White Supremacy with an Army of Snitches 

The day after Trump signed the order ending DEI, a follow-up government-wide memo was issued. It threatened people with “adverse consequences” if they tried to “disguise these programs by using coded or imprecise language.” It demanded that people snitch on their fellow employees who “fail to report this information within 10 days.” Think about what that will mean. This vague language is so elastic that all kinds of people could be fired on the basis of “coded or imprecise language.” And if someone happens to overhear this “imprecise language” and doesn’t snitch—well, they too could get the boot!

Again, think of the overall implications of this order. It is designed to purge Black people, Latinos, women and other social groups that still suffer discrimination out of the small but nevertheless important gains that people in these groups have made, especially through the bitter, bloody upheavals of the 1960s. These orders will create unbearable work conditions—filled with suspicion, back-stabbing, malicious snitching, “settling scores.”